


Lazy Garden

by Aithilin



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29075286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Kurogane fetches Fai in from the garden.
Relationships: Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	Lazy Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted over at my Tumblr

There was nothing odd about Fai lounging in the afternoon sun with a scattered collection of papers that would have had any other household staff tutting at the assumed decadence. There was nothing unusual about the way the man spread himself out in the warm and dabbled shadows of the large tree still growing to its full splendour as the summer heat died with the first breezes of autumn. Robes and costumed splayed out like a river of blues and whites, threatening tears and dirt and all the little tragedies that Kurogane knew could send the tiny collection of staff he had lamenting whatever folly they had done to curse their professional life like this. 

“You’re going to ruin your clothes like that.”

What was an unusual sight in the inner gardens of the rebuild Suwa, was the way the blues of Fai’s ridiculous preferences for long and dramatic silks cascaded down the trunk of the tree from where Fai had perched himself like some exotic bird.

“Will I, Kuro-sama?”

“Stop being an idiot,” not some strange bird, Kurogane decided as he looked up at the lazy grin in greeting. Some great cat, lounging in the quiet afternoon sun with all the time in the world flowing out before him. “Get down from there.”

“I heard,” Fai hummed, the belt he favoured trailing down until it caught against the rough bark of the still growing grand tree; “that there used to be a young lord who climbed the garden trees.”

“Did you now?” It was a simple thing to free the strip of silk and cloth. To keep the delicate thing from being scratched, torn, damaged by the wind driving its shimmering surface to the unyielding roughness of the growing tree. Kurogane took a moment to free the frivolous thing and settle against the tree in its stead. 

Fai hummed again, oblivious to the breeze teasing at his clothes. Kurogane looked up to see the brush in Fai’s hands, the little pot of ink balanced precariously on his knees, the scattering of papers around the base of the tree little more than a collection of abandoned characters and study. It didn’t bode well, Kurogane decided. There were signs that he had learnt a long time ago, before he knew what they really meant. He remembered quiet nights in a cafe worlds and lifetimes ago, when the idiot had settled for drinking to keep his hands busy. He remembered the manic silence of a world where they couldn’t speak to each other; the cryptic, calm smile a threat to those who wanted to test their luck with the scrawny little archer.

And here, in the strange peace of Suwa rising from its own ashes, there were abandoned lessons where familiar characters of his language blended into the strangely beautiful curls of Fai’s own mother tongue and adopted language. There were remnants of things, like the fine threads tearing from the delicate silks, of Fai’s unease and restless nature. The curse of his childhood a lingering shadow in the calm afternoon sun. 

Kurogane settled in to wait it out. “Rain’s coming.”

“Is it, Kuro-pii?”

“Tonight.”

Another soft hum. 

“What are you doing up there, mage?”

“Is Kuro-wan curious?”

“Wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t.”

The last long days of summer were in the air. They had spent the night before watching the storms batter themselves against the distant mountains, the village beyond the manor walls practically hidden by the grey shroud of the rain. He could still taste it on the air— that faint and lingering chill that he remembered practically praying for when he was a child suffering through the summer heat— and knew that there’d be another storm tonight, rolling through tomorrow if he was remembering the pattern of his homeland. It would turn the roads to mud, the fields would be a mire of muck and swamp as the forest floors not far from his little home absorbed the waters to later grow mushrooms. The fish would get caught in the swollen rivers, until they were easy picking. 

“We should go out when it’s dry,” he offered up to the man still in the tree, wholly absorbed in the little practise brush and the pot of ink that threatened to spill. “Have a day out with the kid.”

“We should,” Fai agreed from his perch. “But I’m planning the lunch.”

Kurogane smiled, prepared his retort, and was silenced by a balled up piece of paper striking his head. 

As Fai carefully climbed down, Kurogane opened the balled up page with its now-smudged image of himself. Not the cartoon angry dog Fai had seemed to favour for years, or some other exaggerated image that occasionally surfaced here and there when the mage was bored. This was a proper portrait— with its imperfections and smudged ink— and Kurogane smiled at the sketched lines now marred with the folds in the page. 

“Kuro-sama,” Fai said, finally on his feet back on the sturdy ground of the little garden; “come on.”

“Didn’t know you could draw, mage.”

“There’s still plenty you don’t know about me.”


End file.
